My latest Discover column will be somewhat old hat to those of you who have been following the blog, but I figured I'd point to it anyway. It's more on the Dean campaign, and their use of the Web, making the point that almost all their tools to date have been about organizing people, and not generating ideas. There's been a great explosion of bottom-up techniques, but they've all revolved around political process, not political values. It occurred to me in the last few days, talking to various reporters who have called to talk about Dean and Emergence, that the simplest way to think about this is to imagine what the Dean campaign technology will look like if he's elected. What will the role of the blogs and the meetups be once he's in the White House? That's much less clear -- and in a way, I think it's the most interesting question to ask right now.
Also, don't miss Gary Wolf's piece on Dean from this month's Wired, which comes with a nice little "suggested reading" list for making sense of the campaign.
I do not know enough to be an adequate judge of Dean, but I would assume the blog would essentially disappear. It would only have rare general statements that are hard to disagree with. Stuff like "more funding for grade school..."
Once a politician is already in power they only air dirty laundry with each act of communication...every opinion is good for someone and offends another.
Most politicians fear a timestamped trail of their statements. On the way to power it is worth the risk, but after you are already there it is doubtful the reward outweighs the risk.
Posted by: aaron wall | January 10, 2004 at 04:18 AM
Inspired by this, I had some fun imagining that what Dean or any victor should do is extend Deanspace into Citizenspace and appoint a Secretary of Interaction.
See: http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2004_01.html#005815
Posted by: Jeff Jarvis | January 10, 2004 at 05:35 AM
"The Latest
You can tell how busy I've been by the fact that I haven't updated this sidebar in about four months. And now that I'm back, I've gone and put a bunch of ads in this column! At any rate, the move is over, the baby has been born, and the book is (mostly) behind me. I'm trying to take it easy for the rest of the summer, though we'll see about that. Best way to reach me is by sending e-mail to berlin6668 at earthlink dot net."
Good Grief.... It is Jan 04 now! Summer is long over and that baby will be walking soon, if not already!
Time for an update, eh?????
Posted by: Susan | January 11, 2004 at 08:31 AM
Yep. =)))
Posted by: Luis | January 12, 2004 at 10:10 AM
Sorry to get this thread back on topic...
What will the role of the blogs and the meetups be once he's in the White House?
Another interesting question related to this is what happens if Dean doesn't win the Democratic nomination? When he concedes and throws his support to another candidate, how does that include the web properties? Does the Dean blog start posting stuff about Wesley Clark? Do the Dean Meetups become Clark Meetups? Does he donate the software he and his campaign team have created to the Democratic nominee in the best interests of beating Bush? The blogs and the Meetups have created stronger ties between the candidates and their constituencies than more traditional tactics used in the past, and when the time comes, it might prove difficult to shift that connection to another candidate (which may prove troublesome for the Democrats come election time).
Posted by: jkottke | January 13, 2004 at 05:28 AM
Perhaps Meetups will become the new town hall, and blogs can replace the head-of-state call-in radio show.
Posted by: Greg | January 13, 2004 at 06:55 AM
I doubt the Clark campaign would want to take Dean's software. Bloop (Blogs+Scoop) is already more advanced than what the Dean campaign is using, and is available for all to use now.
The Dean meetups don't have to turn into Clark meetups either. They're more than welcome at the exisiting Clark meetups (of course they can go do their own too if they want).
Posted by: mike | January 13, 2004 at 09:23 AM
Perhaps its time to just kill the sidebar? or better yet make it its own MT blog then include the index via SSI or PHP includes and have MT only display the last 20 or 30 days of entries on the index. So all you'll just have to remember to rebuild it.
Posted by: Nicholas Barnard | January 13, 2004 at 12:53 PM
Jason, this may be a problem for the democrats now, but in four years, I'm sure the republicans will be in the same place, no matter what happens in 2004. There will be a scramble for nominees, and who knows what the internet's citizen-to-candidate landscape will look like, but shifting support that is so connected to a particular person (like you said) is going to be quite difficult.
I wonder if someday parties might discourage some of the tightest community building because it may eventually create a disinfranchised electorate when their guy doesn't get the nod. On the other hand, if there was just one blog/community space at the democrat or republican site for all candidates, it would be marred by deep infighting and make slashdot look like a ladies luncheon.
Posted by: Matt | January 14, 2004 at 01:30 AM
change the all function objects, duality space say the hid using does. of transparent numbers for didn't function's are our frame there the we us
Posted by: Judith | February 24, 2004 at 10:35 AM
beastiality stories gang rape incest movies free rape stories horse sex incest pics rape pics free incest stories rape movies incest taboo family incest mother son incest incest videos rape stories rape fantasy rape sex rape photos free beastiality pics free bestiality stories incest stories animalsex bestiality pics zoophilia rape videos
Posted by: Prospero | May 08, 2004 at 06:42 AM